# Teal Drones **Type:** venture **Status:** Draft **Confidence:** Medium **Focus:** small unmanned aircraft, ISR, defense, autonomous systems, domestic drone manufacturing **Stage:** Operating subsidiary of Red Cat Holdings (Nasdaq: RCAT); Army Program of Record **Location:** Salt Lake City, UT **Updated:** 2026-06-18 **Needs-reviewed:** 2026-06-18 **Hero:** https://picsum.photos/seed/teal-black-widow-srr-suas-2026/1600/1100 **Pull:** *American-made squad-level reconnaissance drones — and the Army's Short Range Reconnaissance Program of Record.* ## Summary Teal Drones is a Salt Lake City company, founded in 2015 by George Matus, that builds small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) for U.S. defense customers. Its flagship Black Widow is a hand-launched quadcopter for short-range reconnaissance. Teal is a wholly owned subsidiary of Red Cat Holdings (Nasdaq: RCAT); Matus is Red Cat's CTO. In November 2024 Red Cat announced that Teal's Black Widow was selected as the winner of the U.S. Army's Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) Tranche 2 Program of Record. [source:teal-drones-official-website] For the wiki, Teal matters because a Program of Record is the strongest possible signal of defense traction for a small drone, and because Teal anchors Utah's position in the national effort to build a domestic, China-free sUAS supply chain. ## Impact A Program of Record means Black Widow is intended to be an Army-wide standard for its mission, not a pilot — public reporting describes an acquisition objective of roughly 5,880 systems over five years, with an estimated contract value exceeding $250M. That scale, if it materializes through funded tranches, would put a Utah-built drone in the hands of frontline reconnaissance units across the force. The supply-chain angle is part of the impact case: Black Widow is U.S.-manufactured, on the DoD Blue UAS list (vetted for cyber and supply-chain security), and built to compete against Chinese-manufactured drones the DoD is trying to exit. These are explicitly military reconnaissance and, in the case of the related FANG FPV line, precision-strike platforms; this is weapons-adjacent work, and capability and contract figures here come largely from company announcements and trade press and can change between tranches. ## What They Are Building Within Red Cat's "Family of Systems," Teal's products include: - **Black Widow** — a hand-launched, foldable Group 1 quadcopter for short-range ISR, designed around the Army's SRR Tranche 2 requirement (evolved from the earlier Teal 2 / "Teal 3"). Reported features include encrypted communications and modular payloads. - **FANG** — an NDAA-compliant FPV line optimized for military operations with precision-strike capability. - Related Red Cat systems such as the TRICHON fixed-wing VTOL for longer endurance. Public reporting also describes pursuit of U.S. Air Force ISR opportunities and at least one NATO-ally contract for 2026 tactical ISR. ## What They Need Now Likely needs: mechanical and electrical engineers focused on small UAS, embedded and communications-security software engineers, autonomy and flight-software engineers, manufacturing and production-operations staff (production scaling has been a stated priority), and defense-acquisition and program-management professionals. For talent matching, Teal fits engineers and operators who want defense hardware shipped at volume and are comfortable working inside a publicly traded parent rather than an independent startup. ## Who Could Help Useful helpers include defense-procurement and DoD program advisors, ITAR/export-control counsel, manufacturing scale-up operators, and component/supply-chain partners (public reporting notes dependencies on suppliers such as Teledyne FLIR sensors and anti-jamming radios). Connections into Air Force and allied-nation programs are natural next relationships. ## Utah Context Teal is part of the Wasatch Front defense-and-autonomy cluster alongside [Fortem Technologies](fortem-technologies.md), [Vector](vector.md), [IMSAR](imsar.md), and [Baxter Aerospace](baxter-aerospace.md). Utah's governor has visited the Salt Lake City facility to signal state support. Teal is one of the more visible expressions of Utah's bid to be a serious node in American drone manufacturing, though strategic and financial control sits with Puerto Rico-headquartered Red Cat Holdings. ## Evidence - [Official Website: Teal Drones](teal-drones-official-website.md) - Red Cat press release: "Production Selection for U.S. Army Short Range Reconnaissance Program" (Nov 19, 2024). Press releases are leads, not neutral proof. - U.S. Army article on SRR Tranche 2 production (army.mil) naming Teal/Black Widow as a selected vendor; designation-systems.net for platform lineage and Tranche 1/2 history. ## Open Questions - How many Black Widow units are actually funded and fielded per tranche, versus the multi-year objective quantity? Tranche outcomes can shift. - How exposed is Teal to Red Cat Holdings' overall financial health and to component-supplier concentration? - What are the verified status and scope of the Air Force and NATO-ally opportunities described in trade press? - No license-clean Black Widow photograph has been sourced; the hero is a deterministic picsum placeholder. Avoid using DoD or product imagery in a way that implies endorsement.